Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition with Ari Medoff

Wisdom.MBA is a podcast where I interview business school students, professors and alums. We look to share wisdom, focusing on the hard-lessons learned through different career, school and business endeavors and share insights into how you can put a business school education to best use.

On this episode, I interview Ari Medoff who is a good friend and business advisor with a wealth of experience in search fund entrepreneurship, also known as Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA).  ETA is a challenging and at time lonely path, but if successful, it can be a great way to own equity in a business and become a CEO at a young age. If you’ve had dreams of owning your own business or are just interested in learning more about the search fund process, I think you’ll enjoy this podcast.

Ari earned an MBA/MPP from Harvard Business School and Kennedy School of Government. Before that, he worked as a Venture Capital/Merchant Banking Analyst at Lehman Brothers in New York where he was part of teams investing in consumer products, healthcare services, hotels, and enterprise software. Ari founded Arosa LLC in 2011 as a self-funded searcher and completed his acquisition of Nurse Care of North Carolina, a premier provider of in-home care services, where he serves as CEO.  Since that time, he has also completed numerous other acquisitions within the healthcare space. Ari teaches a seminar on Search Funds at HBS and is also a board member of a number of great organizations in North Carolina.

Discussion Topics:

(2:00) Venture Capital at Lehman Brothers.

(9:45) Being a good Operator/Investor.

(11:45) The mindset required to be a Search Fund Entrepreneur.

(16:23) Why search funds are growing in popularity.

(23:18) Tenacity, loneliness and the challenges of searching for a business.

(33:30) Post-acquisition and the transition phase.

(40:29) Building trust and setting a vision for your new business.

(44:29) The wisdom of long-term business focus.

(48:34) Pivoting a healthcare business during COVID-19.

(53:37) Volunteering in the community as a business leader.